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THE 


ALEXANDER  MEMORIAL. 


1879 


Anson  D.  F.  Randolph  &  Company, 
900  Broadzuay,  New  York. 


THE  ALEXANDER  TABLET,  ERECTED  BY  THE 
ALUMNI  IN  THE  CHAPEL  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY,  AT  PRINCETON,  N.  J.,  WAS  UNVEILED 
ON  THE  29TH  OF  APRIL,  1879,  WHEN  THE  FOL- 
LOWING ADDRESSES  WERE  DELIVERED. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/alexandermemoriaOOnewy 


ARCHIBALD   ALEXANDER,  D.D. 


ADDRESS 

BY    WILLIAM    M.    PAXTON,    D.D. 

THESE  tablets,  as  I  understand  them, 
put  honor  not  only  upon  the  names 
which  they  bear,  but  also  upon  the 
Alumni  of  Princeton  Seminary. 

They  tell  to  the  world  how  much  we  loved 
these  men,  and  simply  to  love  such  men  is  our 
highest  praise. 

Archibald  Alexander  needs  no  tablet  to 
perpetuate  his  name.  There  is  his  monument. 
Princeton  Seminary  is  the  record  of  his  fame. 
He  projected  it,  cradled  it,  nurtured  it.  He 
chose  and  gathered  around  him  the  honored 
associates  who  helped  him  to  make  it  what  it 
is.  He  watched  over  it  for  forty  years.  He 
commenced  with  three  students,  and  lived  to 
see  the  Seminary  in  its  full-grown  maturity,  its 
class-rooms  crowded   with   one   hundred  and 


sixty  candidates  for  the  ministry.  As  long  as 
the  fame  of  Princeton  Seminary  endures,  the 
name  of  Archibald  Alexander  will  not  be  for- 
gotten. 

He  lives  also  in  his  children.  Monumental 
sons  rose  up  at  his  side,  bright  and  polished 
shafts,  that  cast  their  radiance  afar,  sons  who 
have  inscribed  their  names  side  by  side  with 
that  of  their  father  upon  this  entablature  of 
honor  and  worth. 

He  lives  also  in  his  writings.  The  books 
of  a  few  men  live,  but  there  are  some  men 
who  live  in  their  books.  In  that  book  on 
"  Religious  Experience "  Dr.  Alexander  lives. 
The  book  itself  is  a  breath  of  life.  A  front- 
ispiece gives  us  his  picture,  but  the  book  is 
himself.  The  one  shows  us  his  face,  the  other 
makes  us  feel  the  pulsations  of  his  heart. 
There  was  only  one  man  who  could  have  writ- 
ten the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  so  there  was  but 
one  who  could  have  written  this  book  on  re- 
ligious experience.     The  name  of  John  Bun- 


9 

yan  will  live  as  long  as  there  is  a  pilgrim  Zion- 
bound;  so  Dr.  Alexander  will  live  in  this  book 
as  long  as  religious  experience  lasts. 

But  Archibald  Alexander  still  lives  in  the 
whole  Presbyterian  Church.  John  Wesley 
lived  to  impress  his  image  and  superscription 
upon,  and  to  breathe  his  spirit  into,  a  whole 
denomination,  so  that  wherever  in  the  wide 
world  you  see  Methodism,  there  you  see  John 
Wesley.  Dr.  Alexander  did  not  live  in  an 
age  in  which  this  could  be  done ;  but  in  his 
measure  and  to  an  extent  which  can  not  now 
at  this  distance  of  time  be  readily  understood, 
he  impressed  himself  upon,  and  breathed  his 
spirit  into,  the  whole  Presbyterian  Church. 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that  Dr.  Alexander  lived  be- 
fore the  Union  ;  but  it  is  true  also  that  he 
lived  before  the  Division.  I  speak,  therefore, 
of  his  influence  as  a  power  in  the  whole  Pres- 
byterian Church  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because 
it  is  wicked  now  for  any  one  to  have  memory 
enough  to  recollect  that  there  ever  was  any- 


IO 

thing  but  one  happy,  undivided  Presbyterian 
Church  ;  and,  secondly,  because  it  is  a  remark- 
able fact  connected  with  the  singular  power  of 
this  extraordinary  man,  that  his  influence  was  as 
potent  in  one  branch  of  the  Church  as  in  the  oth- 
er. His  students  were  in  all  the  Synods,  and 
wherever  they  scattered,  no  matter  on  which 
side  of  the  fence  they  stood,  they  called  him 
Father.  When  the  news  of  his  death  arrived 
at  the  meeting  of  the  New  School  Synod 
in  Bloomfleld,  New  Jersey,  the  announcement 
sent  a  tide  of  sorrow  through  the  whole  as- 
sembly. They  hung  his  portrait  up  on  the 
wall  of  the  church,  and  gathered  around  it 
like  mourning,  weeping  children,  and  then 
passed  a  series  of  resolutions,  the  last  clause 
of  which  is,  "  We  crave  the  privilege  to  mingle 
our  tears  at  the  grave  of  a  father." 

When  I  look  back  through  a  period  of 
thirty  years  to  the  time  when  I  entered  the 
ministry,  I  remember  well  that  there  was  no 
man  in  all  the  Church  whose  simple  opinion 


II 


was  so  all-powerful  and  all-controlling  as  that 
of  Dr.  Alexander.  Using  the  word  "  Pope  " 
in  its  best  sense,  as  a  spiritual  father,  I  may  say 
that  if  the  Presbyterian  Church  ever  had  a 
Pope  it  was  Archibald  Alexander.  I  do  not 
know  that  any  Council  ever  pronounced  him 
infallible,  but  when  I  was  a  boy  there  was  a 
strong  belief  among  Presbyterians,  and  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  has  grown  weaker  since, 
that  he  came  nearer  to  being  infallibly  right 
than  any  Pope.  He  spoke  because  he  knew, 
and  he  seemed  to  know  because  he  had  seen. 
Paul  was  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven,  but 
was  not  permitted  to  tell  about  it ;  but  I  have 
heard  Dr.  Alexander  talk  of  heaven  as  if  he 
had  been  there  and  knew  all  the  angels.  The 
people  who  read  his  "  Religious  Experience  " 
had  an  indefinite  impression  that  he  was  half 
inspired,  that  somehow  or  other  he  was  the 
last  of  the  Prophets,  that  he  was  born  a  little 
late,  and  for  that  reason  did  not  get  in  before 
the  Canon  of  the  Scriptures  closed. 


12 

The  hold  which  he  had  upon  the  confidence 
of  all  good  men  and  his  influence  in  the 
Church,  sprang  from  his  wisdom  and  goodness. 
He  was  as  humble  as  a  child,  so  simple  and 
single-hearted  that  no  one  who  knew  him  ever 
suspected  that  he  had  a  grain  of  self-interest 
in  any  project.  He  never  aimed  at  position 
or  grasped  at  power ;  they  simply  came  to 
him — he  had  power  just  as  a  magnet  has,  not 
by  effort,  but  by  a  law  of  nature.  He  had 
greatness  within,  and  the  circumstances  of 
power  and  influence  gathered  around  him  by 
the  law  of  attraction. 

His  power  over  men  arose  from  a  strange 
combination  of  faculties.  He  had  genius  in 
its  best  sense,  a  power  to  create,  invent,  and 
combined  both  in  the  department  of  thought 
and  action.  With  these  he  combined  that  ex- 
traordinary power  which  we  call  sagacity.  He 
had  a  clear  insight  into  things,  a  quick  percep- 
tion of  connections  and  adjustments,  an  intui- 
tive judgment  of  means  and  ends.     This,  add- 


13 

ed  to  energy  and  prompt  decision,  made  him 
an  effective  man.  He  was  not  a  man  whom 
circumstances  made ;  he  made  the  circum- 
stances. Nature  made  him  to  be  a  ringleader. 
If  he  had  been  a  bandit,  he  would  have  been 
the  head  of  the  band.  If  he  had  been  a  sol- 
dier, he  would  have  been  the  Commander  of 
the  Army ;  but  as  he  was  a  Christian,  he  was 
the  Captain  of  the  Lord's  Host.  He  had  a 
rich  experience  of  the  Grace  of  God,  and  this 
gave  balance  and  impulse  to  all  his  powers. 
He  had  no  goodness  by  nature.  He  had  as 
much  sin  in  him  as  usually  falls  to  the  lot  of 
man,  but  those  who  knew  him  constantly  saw 
the  Lion  held  in  the  chains  of  Grace. 

As  a  teacher  the  impression  made  upon  the 
students  was  his  power  to  penetrate  a  subject. 
The  class  to  which  I  belonged  heard  his  lect- 
ures upon  Didactic  Theology  as  well  as  those 
of  Dr.  Hodge.  Dr.  Hodge  gave  us  a  subject 
with  massive  learning,  in  its  logical  develop- 
ment, in  its  beautiful  balance  and  connection 


H 

with  the  whole  system.  Dr.  Alexander  would 
take  the  same  subject,  and  strike  it  with  a 
javelin,  and  let  the  light  through  it.  His  aim 
was  to  make  one  point,  and  nail  it  fast. 
I  always  came  from  his  lecture  with  these 
words  running  through  my  mind,  "A  nail 
driven  in  a  sure  place."  He  carried  the  spear 
of  Ithuriel,  and  how  often  have  we  seen  him 
touch  with  it  a  specious  theory,  when  lo,  it 
changed  into  a  startling  heresy  ;  as  when  from 
the  whispering  toad  Satan  sprang  forth,  full- 
armed  and  terrible. 

But  time  would  fail  to  finish  this  hurried 
photograph  of  one  whose  life  was  written  in 
letters  of  light. 

The  stranger  who  in  aftertime  comes  to 
read  this  tablet,  like  the  traveler  who  now, 
in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Paul  in  London,  reads 
the  name  of  Christopher  Wren,  has  only  to 
look  around  him  to  see  his  monument. 

There  are  monuments  in  the  world  which 
express  nothing  but  a  sublime  egotism.     Great 


*5 

kings  in  Egypt  spent  long  lives  in  erecting 
those  majestic  Pyramids  to  be  either  a  mau- 
soleum, or  monument  to  themselves  ;  a  monu- 
ment to  names  that  have  perished  in  the  sand- 
drifts  of  time ;  but  here  is  one  who  never 
thought  of  self,  whose  whole  life  was  spent  for 
others,  whose  one  motive  was  the  glory  of 
God ;  and  yet  by  the  ordering  of  Providence 
the  very  work  that  grew  around  him  is  his 
monument,  his  own  life  is  his  eulogy,  and  his 
own  works  are  his  mausoleum.  He  was  a 
workman  who  built  for  God,  and  God  built 
this  monument  for  him. 

Napoleon  erected  for  himself  an  Arch  of 
Triumph,  in  such  a  line  that  from  the  windows 
of  the  Palace  of  the  Tuilleries  he  could  see 
the  setting  sun  behind  it,  and  lighting  up  the 
v/hole  Arch  with  the  full  radiance  of  its  set- 
ting glory.  This  was  his  idea  of  apotheosis, 
to  make  everything  in  the  world  and  even  the 
splendor  of  the  setting  sun  tributary  to  his 
own  glory.     But  here  is  one  who  sought  noth- 


16 

ing  for  himself;  he  hid  himself  in  the  shadow 
of  the  Cross.  He  sought  not  that  its  light 
might  cast  its  splendor  upon  his  fame,  but  that 
the  light  of  his  life  might  be  reflected  upon 
the  Cross  ;  so  that  while  he  was  nothing,  Christ 
might  be  all  in  all.  The  result  is  better  than 
an  apotheosis,  a  position  of  everlasting  re- 
membrance in  the  hearts  of  God's  people,  and 
a  promise  that  "  He  shall  shine  as  the  bright- 
ness of  the  firmament,  as  the  stars  for  ever  and 
ever." 


JAMES   WADDELL   ALEXANDER,  D.D. 


ADDRESS 

BY    THEODORE    L.    CUYLER,    D.D. 

THE  name  that  has  been  assigned  to  me 
on  yonder  marble  tablet  represents  three 
generations  of  devout  pulpit  eloquence  ; 
for  the  blood  of  the  Blind  Preacher  of 
Virginia  mingled  with  the  blood  of  the  pa- 
triarch of  this  Seminary  in  the  veins  of 
James  Waddell  Alexander.  He  came  into 
the  world  through  Virginia,  and  the  last  scenes 
on  which  his  closing  eyes  rested  were  the  pict- 
uresque peaks  of  his  beloved  Blue  Ridge. 
Through  all  his  life  he  tethered  to  his  native 
State  ;  and  it  was  a  sovereign  mercy  to  his 
heart  that  he  was  called  home  to  heaven  just 
before  that  region  of  Virginia  rang  with  the 
clash  of  resounding  arms. 

James  W.  Alexander  lived  on  earth  fifty-five 
years — every  one  of  them  busy  to  the  brim. 


20 

To  condense  them  into  ten  minutes  is  like  an 
attempt  to  cut  Westminster  Abbey  on  a  cameo. 
Nearly  one-half  of  his  professional  career  was 
passed  in  this  historic  town.  I  first  saw  him 
in  yonder  college,  when  he  was  my  Professor 
of  Latin  and  English  Literature.  At  that  time, 
the  Faculty  of  Nassau  Hall  was  resplendent 
with  the  names  of  Torrey  the  chemist,  Stephen 
Alexander  the  star-gazer,  Albert  B.  Dod  the 
brilliant  mathematician  and  metaphysician,  and 
Joseph  Henry  the  king  of  American  science. 
In  this  splendid  Faculty  Professor  Alexander 
shone  as  a  peer.  He  was  a  master  of  old  La- 
tinitv,  and  the  modern  Humanities.  We,  his 
pupils,  recall  him  now  as,  scrupulously  dressed, 
he  used  to  mount  the  steps  to  his  lecture- room 
in  the  old  "  Whig  Hall."  We  recall  the  pre- 
cise tones  in  which  he  used  to  quote  Quintil- 
lian  and  Cicero,  and  would  say  to  us  students, 
"  Sir  !  please  to  say  something  about  Pericles." 
While  he  was  teaching  us  through  the  week, 
he  loved  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  gratu- 


21 

itously — down  in  Witherspoon  Street  negro 
chapel — to  the  children  of  God  carved  in  eb- 
ony. 

His  connection  with  this  Theological  Semi- 
nary was  very  brief — extending  from  1849  to 
1 85 1 — and  it  was  the  most  uneventful  episode 
of  his  noble  life.  He  had  been  for  five  years 
a  much-loved  pastor  in  New  York  ;  and  he 
hungered  to  get  back  to  the  pulpit  which  was 
his  throne,  and  to  his  empire  in  the  people's 
hearts.  He  wrote  to  his  friend  Hall,  "  I  long 
to  be  back  to  my  pastoral  rounds,  my  sick  folk, 
and  my  good  old  women."  The  pulpit  of 
New  York  has  had  more  thrilling  orators,  and 
more  brilliant  pyrotechnists  ;  but  it  never  held 
a  more  symmetric,  scholarly,  spiritual,  and 
satisfying  minister  of  Jesus  Christ  than  James 
W.  Alexander.  The  word  to  describe  him  is 
— satisfying.  He  satisfied  the  intellect ;  he 
satisfied  the  purest  taste ;  he  satisfied  the  con- 
science ;  he  fed  the  innermost  soul  of  the  devout 
believer  ;  and  it  is  no  ordinary  achievement  to 


22 

have  equally  satisfied  the  culture  of  Fifth  Av- 
enue, and  the  company  of  humble  negroes 
who  clung  to  him  in  the  Witherspoon  Street 
Chapel.  If  to-day  both  those  surviving  con- 
gregations could  come  to  pay  their  homage 
before  this  tablet,  I  am  sure  that  my  departed 
friend  would  value  more  the  "  two  mites"  of 
poor  old  "  Aunt  Flora,"  the  negro  woman, 
than  all  the  costlier  tributes  of  Murray  Hill 
millionaires. 

Dr.  Alexander  was  not  only  an  accomplish- 
ed Professor,  and  a  most  affluent  preacher  of 
the  Word  ;  he  was  also  a  voluminous  author. 
He  put  more  thoughts  into  type  than  any  man 
who  has  ever  lived  in  Princeton.  He  was  a 
most  prolific  writer  for  the  daily  and  weekly 
press ;  and  he  prepared  an  article  for  every 
number  of  old  "  Princeton  Repertory."  God 
be  thanked  for  that  grand  old  Repertory ! 
Presbyterian  ministers  who  not  only  studied 
it,  but  steered  by  it,  were  certain  never  to  run 
on  the  rocks.     Dr.  Alexander  wrote  thirty-five 


Sunday-school  books  for  children,  and  left 
several  volumes  of  Discourses  which  are  as  full 
of  savor  and  sweetness  as  a  pressed  honey- 
comb. His  rich  and  suggestive  "  Thoughts  on 
Preaching"  contain  really  the  cream  of  all  the 
series  of  lectures  on  Homiletics  that  have  been 
delivered  by  various  celebrated  men  at  Yale. 
That  book  is  marrow  and  fatness  for  every 
young  minister.  Of  all  the  many  productions 
of  my  beloved  friend,  I  am  inclined,  however, 
to  rate  most  highly  his  "Charles  Quill"  letters 
to  workingmen — which  have  the  simplicity 
and  pith  of  Benjamin  Franklin — and  his  cele- 
brated "  Forty  Years'  Letters "  to  his  friend 
Dr.  Hall,  of  Trenton.  James  Hamilton,  of 
London,  once  said  to  me  that  a  perusal  of  them 
was  the  next  best  thing  to  a  visit  to  America. 
The  most  brilliant  Bishop  in  the  Methodist 
Church  also  said  to  me  that  he  regarded  it  as 
one  of  the  dozen  most  remarkable  works  yet 
produced  in  this  country !  To  the  future  his- 
torian it  will  be  as  valuable  a  picture  of  the 


24 

times  as  Pepys'  Diary  and  Burnet's  Memoirs 
were  to  Lord  Macaulay.  That  must  have 
been  a  rich  mental  gold  mine  whose  careless 
"  washings  "  could  yield  such  an  auriferous  pro- 
duct as  the  "  Forty  Years'  Letters." 

But  let  me  not  forget  to  pay  honest  tribute 
to  Dr.  Alexander's  beauty  and  nobleness  as  a 
personal  friend.  He  often  honored  me  with 
hours  of  intimate  converse.  Many  of  you 
remember  how  he  varied  in  his  moods,  and 
sometimes  suffered  from  fits  of  physical  depres- 
sion. When  the  clouds  of  depression  ran  low 
along  the  steeps  of  his  mind,  he  was  quite  un- 
approachable. But  when  the  sunshine  of 
cheerfulness  burst  forth,  he  was  as  sweet  as 
summer.  Most  grave  and  devout  in  the  pul- 
pit, he  often  relaxed  by  the  fireside  into  a 
sportive  humor,  which  had  the  delicate  flavor 
of  Charles  Lamb's.  Never  shall  I  forget  a 
most  fertilizing  afternoon  talk  I  enjoyed  with 
him  in  yonder  parlor  of  his  father's  house. 
His  flow  of  merriment  was  wonderful.     As  he 


25 

was  then  studying  hymnology,  I  showed  him 
a  queer  old  Methodist  camp-meeting  hymn- 
book  which  contained  this  remarkable  coup- 
let— 

"When  I  was  blind,  and  could  not  see, 
The  Calvinists  deceived  me  !  " 

Dr.  Alexander  laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down 
his  face,  and  he  begged  the  loan  of  the  book, 
which  proved  to  be  permanent.  But  he  more 
than  repaid  the  loss  by  sending  to  me  Charles 
Lamb's  original  copy  of  Vinny  Bourne's  Po- 
ems, with  the  autograph  of  Lamb's  Latin  epi- 
gram (the  only  one  he  ever  wrote)  on  the  fly- 
leaf of  the  precious  volume. 

Oh  !  at  how  many  points  my  honored  friend 
touched  human  life !  Touched  its  rich  and 
varied  scholarship — touched  the  sympathies  of 
sorrow's  home — touched  the  highest  reach  of 
society  and  its  lowliest — and  touched  every 
key  of  devout  emotion  !  All  his  splendid  at- 
tainments, all   his  many-sided  and  multiform 


26 

life-work,  he  laid  as  an  humble  offering  before 
the  Throne. 

I  well  remember  meeting  him,  at  the  hour 
of  sunset,  in  the  valley  of  Interlaken.  We 
stood  together  in  an  open  field,  and  watched 
the  icy  diadem  of  the  Jungfrau  just  as  it  was 
blossoming  into  ruddy  gold.  Dr.  Alexander 
stood  silent,  gazing  upward,  and  then  turning 
to  me  with  a  reverent  awe,  he  exclaimed,  "  The 
Almighty  made  that  to  show  what  He  could 
do!" 

The  last  time  I  ever  met  him  was  a  month 
before  his  death ;  we  met  in  the  presence 
of  Church's  painting  of  "  The  Heart  of  the  An- 
des." I  observed  that  his  hands  were  very  trem- 
ulous, and  the  ashen  hue  of  approaching  death 
was  already  overshadowing  his  countenance. 
A  few  days  afterward  he  set  his  face  south- 
ward. He  went  back  to  the  home  of  his  in- 
fancy ;  back  to  the  crystal  airs  of  his  Virginia 
mountains ;  back  to  the  sincere  gospel-milk  he 
had  been  fed  with  at  his  mother's  knee  ;  back 


27 

to  the  cross  of  his  adorable  and  beloved  Re- 
deemer ;  and  there  he  laid  him  down  to  die. 
He  used  often  to  say,  "  On  my  dying  bed  I 
want  the  Gospel  to  be  self-evidencing"  This 
joy  was  vouchsafed  to  him.  For  almost  the 
last  words  which  fell  from  his  dying  lips  were, 
"/  know  whom  I  have  believed!'1  It  was  beau- 
tiful to  see  how  this  great,  erudite  scholar  just 
put  the  soft  pillow  of  this  sweet  little  text  un- 
der his  weary  brain  and  calmly  fell  asleep  in 
Jesus.  And  so  our  earth  lost,  and  heaven 
welcomed,  James  Waddell  Alexander. 


^£*_. 


JOSEPH    ADDISON    ALEXANDER,  D.D. 


ADDRESS 

BY    WILLIAM    C.    CATTELL,    D.D.,    LL.D. 

]N  the  career  of  this  eminent  scholar  we  find 
that  in  a  large  and  truthful  sense  the  boy 
was  father  to  the  man.  In  his  youth  he  was 
a  marvel  of  genius  and  learning,  and  when  he 
ceased  from  his  labors  in  the  full  maturity  of 
his  powers,  all  Israel  mourned  his  loss ;  for  his 
fame  was  in  all  the  churches  as  a  brilliant  wri- 
ter, as  an  accurate,  varied,  and  profound  scholar, 
as  a  luminous  and  sagacious  commentator,  and 
as  a  preacher  of  marvelous  power.  His  inti- 
mate friends  and  associates  knew  also  that 
there  was  in  him  a  vast  reserve  of  power  that 
never  appeared  to  the  public,  and  which  seem- 
ed to  them  equal  to  far  greater  things  than  he 
accomplished,  even  in  a  career  so  brilliant. 
"  Taking  him  all  in  all,"  said  his  life-long  col- 
league— that  great  master  upon  whose  memo- 


32 

rial  tablet,  in  our  recent  sorrow,  we  look  with 
moistened  eyes  to-day,  and  who  knew  what 
greatness  was — "  taking  him  all  in  all,"  said 
Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  "  he  was  certainly  the 
most  gifted  man  with  whom  I  have  ever  been 
personally  acquainted." 

But  we  are  gathered  here  to-day  as  his  old 
pupils,  and  this  brief  address  is  expected  to  re- 
call mainly  his  honored  memory  as  an  in- 
structor. Although,  as  an  author  and  as  a 
preacher,  he  was  a  Prince  in  Israel ;  yet  his 
great  service  to  the  Church  was  undoubtedly 
in  training  her  sons  for  the  Gospel  ministry. 
To  this  exalted  work  and  in  this  honored 
school  of  the  Prophets,  for  a  quarter  of  a  cent- 
ury, he  gave  the  whole  force  of  his  command- 
ing genius  and  the  opulent  resources  of  his 
varied  and  profound  scholarship.  For  the 
most  of  the  time  he  was  engaged  in  the  exe- 
getical  criticism  of  the  sacred  volume,  at  first 
with  the  Hebrew,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
life  with  the  Greek  ;  during  the  interval  (from 


33 

1852  to  1859)  ne  occupied  the  Chair  of  Ec- 
clesiastical History  in  deference  to  the  urgent 
wishes  of  others,  but  the  duties  were  never  to 
his  taste.  In  one  of  his  familiar  letters  refer- 
ring to  the  change,  he  expressed  his  dislike  at 
"  leaving  the  terra  firma  of  inspired  truth  for 
the  mud  and  sand  of  patristic  learning,"  and 
he  returned  with  undisguised  joy  to  the  more 
congenial  duties  of  the  critical  interpretation 
of  the  inspired  text.  For  this  work  he  was 
admirably  qualified  by  his  wonderful  knowl- 
edge of  languages,  for  which,  as  I  have  inti- 
mated, he  was  distinguished  from  his  youth. 
He  began  Latin  at  an  age  when  most  boys 
are  still  wrestling  with  their  primers.  At  the 
age  of  ten  he  was  pursuing  the  systematic 
study  of  Hebrew  and  other  Oriental  languages ; 
before  he  was  twenty,  as  we  gather  from  the 
cautious  and  modest  statements  in  his  private 
journal,  he  read  easily  and  for  the  sake  of  then- 
literature,  Hebrew,  Arabic,  Persian,  Greek, 
Latin,  Spanish,  French,  Italian,  and  German, 


34 

and  in  the  prime  of  his  life  he  was  a  thorough 
master  of  all  languages  worth  knowing.  To 
these  stores  of  linguistic  learning  was  added  a 
rare  critical  sagacity  and  a  noble  fidelity  to  the 
truth  that  wrought  unweariedly  to  ascertain 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  text.  His  crowning 
gift  as  an  exegetical  instructor  was  a  devout 
and  reverent  love  for  the  Bible,  that  influenced 
his  whole  life  as  a  Christian  and  as  a  teacher. 
The  sacred  volume  was  to  this  erudite  scholar 
far  more  than  a  venerable  classic  or  an  inter- 
esting subject  for  linguistic  and  critical  studies. 
He  read  it  constantly  and  prayerfully  as  a 
means  of  private  devotion,  often  completing 
whole  books  at  one  reading,  in  the  various 
languages  with  which  he  was  familiar,  and  at 
other  times  dwelling  long  and  lovingly  upon 
each  verse  and  line,  as  he  says  in  his  diary  with 
reference  to  the  Psalms,  "  drinking  them  in 
drop  by  drop."  Highly  favored  indeed  were 
we,  preparing  for  the  ministry  of  the  Word, 
to  sit  at    the  feet  of    an   exeeetical    teacher 


35 

whose  acute,  learned,  and  exhaustive  criticisms 
of  the  ipsissmia  verba  were  in  keeping  with 
so  great  and  so  sacred  a  love  for  the  inspired 
records.  He  taught  us  by  precept  and  by  ex- 
ample that  every  resource  of  learning  and  all 
the  strength  of  the  most  cultured  powers 
should  be  employed  to  ascertain  simply  the 
meaning  of  the  inspired  text,  and  then  what 
those  words  taught  should  be  received  as  the 
truth  of  God,  toward  which  the  attitude  of 
scholar  and  theologian  should  be  that  of  the 
believing  child — Speak,  Lord,  for  Thy  servant 
heareth  ! 

The  manner  and  methods  of  such  a  man  in 
the  class-room,  and  his  influence  over  his  stu- 
dents generally,  is  something  that  may  be  im- 
agined, but  which  it  is  impossible  to  describe. 
It  was  unlike  that  of  other  men.  We  loved 
and  revered  all  our  teachers  here,  but  there 
was  a  strange  charm  about  Dr.  Addison  Alex- 
ander, this  cloistered  student,  who  was  such 
an   habitual  recluse  from  society,  and  at  the 


36 

same  time  the  most  accurate  and  discriminat- 
ing observer  of  men  and  things,  and  as  famil- 
iar with  all  the  current  events  in  the  Church 
and  with  the  social  life  around  him  as  he  was 
with  latest  scholia  of  the  German  critics  and 
with  the  voluminous  and  learned  commenta- 
ries of  the  Rabbins  upon  the  Talmud.  We 
looked  with  something  like  awe  upon  the 
great  scholar  whose  apparently  exhaustless 
learning  was  poured  forth  hour  after  hour  in 
the  lecture-room,  and  who  loved  and  sought 
the  society  of  little  children,  and,  with  a  heart 
as  guileless  and  pure  as  theirs,  would  spend 
with  them  many  happy,  gleeful  hours.  Then 
he  was  oddly  impatient  of  routine  ;  he  would 
go  at  a  bound  from  one  extreme  to  another — 
leaving  the  quiet  seclusion  of  his  Princeton 
study  he  would  seek  a  room  on  the  ground- 
floor  of  a  New  York  hotel,  fronting  upon  the 
very  noisiest  street,  where,  through  the  sum- 
mer vacation,  he  wrote  at  the  open  window 
and  amid  all  the  din  and  confusion,  eight  or 


37 

ten  hours  a  day  upon  his  most  learned  com- 
mentaries, with  no  book  at  hand  but  the 
Bible  !  A  man  of  such  apparent  opposites,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  he  would  now  and 
then  give  a  turn  to  affairs  in  the  class-room 
that  would  throw  us  all  into  what  would  mild- 
ly be  called  a  state  of  confusion.  I  need  not 
harrow  up  the  feelings  of  any  of  his  old  pu- 
pils here  present  by  remarking  that  upon  suit- 
able provocation  he  could  sting  like  a  nettle, 
or  that  a  visit  of  ceremony,  or  of  compliment 
to  his  room,  or  even  a  personal  interview  after 
class,  unless  the  student  had  some  good  hon- 
est business  in  hand,  was  not  altogether  the 
most  cheerful  reminiscence  of  Seminary  life  ; 
or  that  upon  a  regular  field  day  in  Hebrew, 
horresco  referens,  he  could  produce  an  amount 
of  consternation  and  dismay  throughout  the 
class  that  was  frightful !  But  upon  these 
memorabilia  I  may  not  dwell  this  morning. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  there  was  nothing  in 
all  these  things  that  hid   him   for  a  moment 


from  our  sight  as  the  great-souled  teacher 
whose  very  presence  was  an  inspiration.  I  lis 
genius  and  learning  and  piety  combined  with 
his  personal  magnetism — something,  I  know 
not  what,  in  the  eye  or  voice  or  in  the  very 
presence,  that  makes  the  true  teacher  greater 
than  his  book — all  this  never  failed  to  quicken 
with  strange  delight  and  enthusiasm  the  pulse 
of  every  student  who  had  in  him  any  blood  at 
all.  Nor  were  we  discouraged  by  the  vast  dis- 
tance between  the  resources  and  power  of 
such  a  man  and  our  own.  It  was  his  greatest 
triumph  as  a  teacher  to  make  the  Bible  so  glo- 
rious to  us  that  even  the  humblest  felt  that  his 
future  ministry  of  such  Oracles  need  not  be 
without  honor  and  praise  to  their  Divine 
Author. 

And  there  were,  among  his  students,  some 
who  were  drawn  nearer  to  him  than  the  some- 
what formal  associations  of  the  class-room  al- 
lowed— members  of  the  private  classes  whom 
he  invited  to  pursue  with  him  advanced  studies 


39 

—and  these  knew  what  a  gentle,  tender,  loving 
heart  this  great  scholar  had,  and  their  personal 
attachment  to  him  rose  to  an  enthusiasm.  I 
dare  not  trust  myself  to  speak  of  the  hours 
I  passed  alone  with  Dr.  Alexander  in  his  study, 
during  my  Post  Graduate  year,  when  at  his  in- 
vitation I  pursued  with  him  his  favorite  Ori- 
ental studies,  but  they  are  among  the  most 
precious  and  cherished  memories  of  my  stu- 
dent life.  And  when  the  great  scholar  and 
teacher  died,  and  men  everywhere  spoke  of 
the  irreparable  loss  that  this  Seminary  and 
the  Church  had  sustained,  many  of  us  mourn- 
ed as  in  the  deep  shadow  of  a  personal  be- 
reavement ;  for  a  deep  and  grateful  love  had 
been  wrought  into  our  reverent  memories  of 
the  teacher  to  whom  we  owed  so  much,  and 
as  often  as  we  have  revisited  these  familiar 
Halls  it  has  been  to  us  a  great  and  sacred  sor- 
row that  we  should  "  see  his  face  no  more." 


j>&;-i;.'ii. 


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